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Joanne K. Hatch, former Muskegon County jobs and tourism official, dies at 75

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Joanne K. Hatch, a veteran tourism industry leader and county government official, died on Friday, April 11, according to her husband and Whitehall mayor, Emery "Mac" Hatch. She was 75.
(Muskegon Chronicle File Photo)

MUSKEGON, MI – Joanne K. Hatch always managed to get the job done and do it well, whether she was organizing a major sailing event, organizing a visit by Russian executives or helping Muskegon residents find work, her family and friends said.

Hatch, a veteran tourism industry leader and county government official, died on Friday, April 11. She was 75.

During her time in Muskegon County, Hatch held several positions that uplifted the region, including stints at Muskegon County, the Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce and Lake Express LLC of Milwaukee.

Former Muskegon County Administrator Frank Bednarek, whom Hatch worked with as administrative assistant, remembers her as “a lively, wonderful lady.”

“In my opinion, Joanne was a very able and capable woman. She could deliver a project on time. She was a very professional woman,” Bednarek said.

Bednarek said he was especially impressed with her involvement with The Tall Ships Challenge Great Lakes in 2001 and 2003. The event, organized by American Sail Training Association, attracted thousands to the region and was touted as one of the most successful tourism activities at Heritage Landing.

Bednarek recalls how she orchestrated the event despite the mishaps that surfaced.

“When you’re doing something like the Tall Ships, many things go wrong,” Bednarek said. “She organized the whole thing and pulled it off and it was one spectacular event. She always did her work with a sense of humor.”

Chris Zahrt, a friend and president of the Michigan Irish Music Festival, said she was also impressed with Hatch’s Tall Ships Challenge work.

“She pulled it off with the greatest of ease,” Zahrt said.

The two met when Hatch worked for Muskegon County and when Zahrt worked for the Lakeshore Museum Center.

“My first impression and my continuous impression I had when I was friends with Joanne is that she was able to accomplish any task and encourage others to assist with that. She was a great connector in our community,” Zahrt said.

Zahrt said she was also inspired by Hatch's relationship with her husband, Whitehall mayor Emery “Mac” Hatch, and her ability to make people laugh.

“She was a great force in our community for a lot of years and she will be certainly missed by the people she worked with and her family and friends,” Zahrt said.

Hatch was born on Oct. 8, 1938 in Flint to parents who wanted her to pursue a career traditionally associated with women, like home economics, nursing, teaching or secretarial work, she told the Muskegon Chronicle in 2001.

Following their orders, she enrolled in a home economics program at Michigan State University. In her final year in college, she met her husband at the Coral Gables Restaurant in East Lansing after being introduced by a mutual friend, he said.

“I was smitten,” Emery Hatch said. “She was beautiful and she was very smart.”

Following her graduation in 1960, Hatch taught home economics for a short period in the Detroit area. There, she had her first child and served on the board for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Then, her husband came up with the idea to buy three marinas on White Lake and the family moved to Muskegon County from Grosse Pointe in 1971.

Hatch, with her husband, owned and operated Skipper’s Landing, while she enjoyed more than 15 years working in the boat covering business.

“We had 53 of the most wonderful years anybody would expect to have,” Hatch said of their marriage.

In 1976, she began moving away from the career her parents wanted for her and toward the work she really wanted to pursue. She became the training and job placement coordinator for the county’s employment and training department.

Hatch said the work required “chutzpah” since the area’s unemployment rate hovered at 21 to 22 percent at the time.

In 1982, she accepted a job at the Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce, where she worked her way up to the president position by 1988.

She returned to the county government office in 1992 to become the administrative assistant to Bednarek and, eventually, the county’s tourism development director.

Those stints were followed by work with Lake Express in 2004. There, she served as the director of Michigan governmental and community affairs.

At the time of her move to the Lake Express, where she coordinated the company’s efforts with governmental agencies and spearheaded public presentations, the Muskegon community recognized her as the first and only Muskegon County Convention & Visitors Bureau director to be a county employee.

When she took the job, Hatch said her office's biggest accomplishment was bringing together factions in the tourism industry to the Muskegon area.

“We have to show our community off to the world, ” she said, “but we also have to show it off to ourselves.”

Hatch, whose loved ones describe her as an avid reader and “an excellent seamstress,” also worked with the Muskegon Civic Theatre, West Shore Symphony, Michigan Irish Music Festival and the International Buster Keaton Society.

With former Norton Shores Mayor Nancy Crandall, she organized a visit and a delegation of Russian travel industry representatives to Muskegon in 2005.

In another collaborative effort, she and former state Rep. Holly Hughes spearheaded an initiative involving the White Lake Community Fund and the Community Foundation for Muskegon County to create charitable endowment and capital improvement funds for the Historic Howmet Playhouse.

Hatch leaves behind her husband, Mac; her daughter, Greer Darby of Swartz Creek, Mich.; her son, Edward “Ted” (Julie) Hatch of Bell Brook, Ohio, along with five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

She will be buried at the Oakhurst Cemetery in Whitehall. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 19 at The Lee Chapel of Sytsema Funeral Homes, Inc., 6291 S. Harvey St. in Norton Shores. The family gathering will be from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

In lieu of flowers, Hatch’s family has requested donations in her memory be sent to the Howmet Theater Fund City of Whitehall.